Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz. referred to blacks as “colored people” Thursday in debate on his proposed amendment to an annual defense policy bill, drawing a sharp rebuke from the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“My amendment has nothing to do with whether or not people of color or black people or anyone can serve,” said Crane, who is in his first term. “It has nothing to do with any of those things.”
Lawmakers were debating a series of GOP-backed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House aims to pass by the end of the week.
Crane said his amendment would prohibit the Defense Department from considering race, gender, religion, political affiliation or “any other ideological concept” as the sole basis for training, education, promotion or retention decisions. recruitment
“The military was never meant to be, you know, inclusive. Its strength is not its diversity. Its strength is its standards,” said Crane, 43, a combat veteran.
“I’ll tell you this right now that you can — you can continue to play these games with diversity and equity and inclusion. But there are some real threats. And if we keep playing and we keep lowering our standards, it’s not going to go well,” he said.
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., at the U.S. Capitol on March 28.File Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Immediately after Crane finished his remarks, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked that the derogatory phrase he used be removed from the record.
“I find it offensive and very inappropriate,” said Beatty, who was chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus in the previous Congress. “I am asking for unanimous consent to remove the words from referring to me or any of my colleagues as people of color.”
Crane chimed in with a request to change his comments to “people of color.” Beatty insisted, however, that the words be removed from the record. They were withdrawn by unanimous consent.
When asked for a comment about his choice of words, Crane said he “misspoke.”
“In a heated debate over my amendment that would have banned skin color discrimination in the Armed Forces, I said the wrong thing,” Crane said in a statement. “Each of us is made in God’s image and created equal.”
Beatty, 73, had criticized Crane’s amendment as trying to “undermine our freedoms to know each other, to hire each other and to understand our cultures.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, at a hearing on Capitol Hill in March 2022.Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images file
The House is expected to vote on Crane’s amendment Thursday night.
On the Senate floor this week, Rep. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., refused to acknowledge that white nationalism is fundamentally racist.
Asked to clarify comments he made in May that appeared to advocate white nationalist military service, Tuberville insisted in an interview Monday night on CNN that not all white nationalists are racist. Instead, he suggested that they are simply people “who have a few, probably different, beliefs.”
Rebecca Kaplan contributed.
